Gaming systems have evolved from those which provided an isolated gaming experience to networked systems providing a rich, interactive experience which may be shared in real time between friends and other gamers. With Microsoft's Xbox® video game system and Xbox Live® online game service, users can now easily communicate with each other while playing to share the gaming experience.
Users can track their own and their friends' progress through different games is through the concept of game scores and achievements. Another innovation in current gaming systems is the ability to quickly and easily download games. For example, Microsoft introduced a gaming disc known as Microsoft Arcade which is able to connect to a server through the Internet when the gaming console is connected to the Internet. From the server site, the Arcade gaming disc is able to enumerate full version games which are available for download to the user's hard disc drive on the XBOX® console.
Large scale or “massively multiplayer” games allow large numbers of players to interact. Currently, console games are generally limited to multi-user games hosted by one of the console users.
Many games seek to inject “realistic” commentary into the gameplay. This commentary typically includes pre-recorded content stored with the game which is accessed and presented to the user at appropriate events in the game or when the state of the game reaches a certain point. After playing the game for some time, this pre-recorded content becomes stale and repetitive.